by Dylan Peters
I wanted to give in and stop fighting. I wanted to go back to the tide pool. I wanted the Nullwood gone. I wanted my mother back. I wanted to be a little child again who didn’t have to face the ever-changing world. I wanted to be safe again. I wanted to be careless again. I wanted the world to be mine again.
But I couldn’t go back again… Nothing would ever be how it once was.
I couldn’t pretend to be a child in the tide pools again, careless and happy as my mother watched over me. My mother needed me now. I had to be there for her now, and I had to be there for Anna, too. I couldn’t turn away if I got scared. Also, I had to be there for Kay and Jim. I couldn’t just send them away if we disagreed. I couldn’t run away and hide. We had to be in the Nullwood because it wasn’t going away, even if it wasn’t what I wanted my world to be.
Life was consequence, adaptation, compromise, and change. There was no giving up. There was no going back. That which once was had to stay in the pages of children’s stories and in the memories of aging generations. Once upon a time was for children. I couldn’t have the past back again. I couldn’t have my innocence back again. The future was coming whether I was ready or not, and in a land where only the brave are free, I could never utter the word again. Again was the anthem of the weak.
“Take us to the Everflame!” I shouted above the deluge of splashing and roaring. “Bring us there together! I’m not here to fight you! We need the flame!”
The bear stopped.
The world stopped.
The wind did not brush my cheek, the water did not splash or churn, the clouds did not swell or threaten, and the bear did not rumble or roar. All was silent and placid as I pulled in each new breath and exhaled.
“Please,” I said, my chest tight with emotion. “We can’t go back. We can’t be afraid. Never again.”
The water receded as if the entire ocean was swirling down some unseen drainpipe. I slid off of the bear’s back and leaned against its side. I swayed with its black fur against my face as each breath it took moved me back and forth. The water was up to my knees, but getting lower and lower all the time. As it reached my ankles, branches of the Nullwood emerged and stretched into the air. However, these were not black branches, but the iridescent blues, greens, yellows, and pinks from inside the trees. The Nullwood that was growing all around us was not a Nullwood of darkness, but a Nullwood of light.
The branches extended far above our heads and wove in and out of one another in veined patterns like a web. It felt as if this new forest cupped us in godlike hands. The forest continued to grow and it was beautiful, like a living wall of wood and light reaching into the heavens.
It continued up and then bent inward. The branches formed a dome over our heads. We looked up and a bright light emanated somewhere near the apex of the massive mystical dome, and at that moment I knew, without doubt, that we were staring at the Everflame.
It was small but bright, and it descended toward us, floating slowly like a sparkling coin sinking down into a wishing well. I grew dizzy as it came closer and closer to us. My head spun, and the colors of the wooded dome flashed in my mind. Blue, yellow, pink, green, blue, yellow, pink, green.
I tried to steady myself against the bear, but I felt like I was falling. I felt like I was falling and spinning and the colors continued like a merry-go-round moving too fast. I said the colors in my mind, over and over, like a chant or an incantation. Blue, yellow, pink, green. I was so dizzy, and suddenly the colors I said turned to other words, but I didn’t know why. Blue, yellow, pink, green. Blue, wind, pink, earth. Blue, wind, fire, earth. Water, wind, fire, earth…
I couldn’t stop spinning.
I couldn’t stop falling.
I couldn’t… I couldn’t…
I…
I opened my eyes and the vision was complete. I knew how to find the Everflame.
12
As my vision cleared, I found Jim hovering over me with one eye wide, his face far too close for comfort.
“You still in there, Creepy?” Jim asked.
It took a moment to realize his hands were on my shoulders and he was shaking me as if he were willing me back into the real world.
“I’m here,” I said groggily with my back against the forest floor. “I’m here.”
Jim helped me sit up and I could see Anna next to me, Wisket in her lap as always, and Kay not far away. They looked concerned. Ah’Rhea stood behind Jim, nervously playing with her dagger, her eyes on the sky, and Reego at her feet.
“Jeez,” Jim said to me. “That was close.”
“What was close?” I asked.
“You were lying on the ground, shaking and mumbling,” Jim said. “We were afraid we were losing you.”
“No,” I said as the haze cleared from my mind. “I’m good, Jim. Actually… I’m great.”
“You saw it?” Ah’Rhea asked. She stopped her skyward watch and walked over to me, bending down as she approached to stare intently into my eyes. “You did, didn’t you?”
Ah’Rhea was plainly nervous, and she continued to play with the knife as she stared into my eyes. Her gaze made me uncomfortable, so I looked away, and instead stared at the sky. It was clouding oddly, maybe supernaturally.
“They’re coming, aren’t they?” I asked Ah’Rhea. “The mynahs? You can feel they’re coming and that’s why you’re nervous.”
“Just tell me what you saw in the vision,” Ah’Rhea said, avoiding my question.
She delivered her words with fake calm. She hadn’t realized how anxious she’d appeared, and now she was trying to compensate. It worried me to know she was so distraught, but I pushed my thoughts aside. We had no time for my worries.
So I told them about my vision. I told them all of it, and while I did they stared at me in confusion. It was obvious it didn’t make any sense to them. I took them through the beach scene, my fight with the shadow bear, and then the dome of colored branches. I didn’t want to hold back any piece of my vision from them, knowing anyone could interpret something important I may have missed. Once I reached the end, Ah’Rhea stood up and placed her dagger in her waistband. Then she went back to staring at the sky without as much as a word.
“That doesn’t sound like anything we can use,” Kay said. “It sounds like a nonsense dream.”
“I know it seems like nonsense,” I said, “but the thing is… I’m pretty sure the vision told me how to find the Everflame.”
“How?” Ah’Rhea asked. She paused briefly and stared at me sideways. “Have you remembered something from your time in the Nullwood before we met?”
“No,” I admitted. “I still don’t remember that, but I think this vision was a key for how to find the dome of colored branches, and I think that’s where we will find the Everflame.”
“You think that dome is a real place?” Anna asked.
“It felt real,” I said, knowing I sounded crazy. “I mean, it felt more like a memory than a vision. It’s hard to explain.”
“Try,” Anna said with compassion.
“Okay,” I said as I tried to get my thoughts in order. The air was growing cooler, and the sky was darkening. We would have to make camp soon. “How much time do we have?” I asked.
“What do you mean?” Jim asked.
“Before night,” I said. “How much time do we have before we need to take shelter?”
“We’ll need shelter before nightfall,” Ah’Rhea answered. “I fear the mynahs are getting closer.”
“How can you know that?” Kay asked.
“I can’t,” the woman said, “but I feel it. Experience has taught me to trust my intuition. We will have to move soon.”
“All right.” I knew I had to make my presentation quick. “In the vision, the trees that grew into the dome were four colors. They were the four colors we’ve seen since entering the Nullwood, in the places where the bark has been stripped or broken. Pink, blue, yellow and green. Toward the end of my vision, these colors echoed in my head, over and over,
until they changed. Pink, blue, yellow, and green, became fire, water, wind, and earth.”
“The ancient elements,” Ah’Rhea said.
“Yes,” I confirmed. “Like you told us about back at Esteban’s.”
“I don’t understand how that will help us find anything,” Jim said.
“In my vision, I had an epiphany,” I said. “We’ve been going about things all wrong. We’re treating the Nullwood as if it’s an alien place–like we don’t belong here. I mean, our entire goal has been to change it back to how things were before the Demise, but what we haven’t understood is that the Nullwood is our world now. We are a part of it, and it is a part of us. If we expect to find any success we have to learn to understand it. We have to learn to read it the way we read the sun in the sky and know what time of day it is, or feel the humid air in the summer and know it’ll rain soon.”
“Okay,” Anna said. “So what are we supposed to be reading?”
“Maybe it would be easier if I show you,” I said, not sure I could explain myself without an example. “Ah’Rhea, can I borrow your dagger?”
The woman handed me her weapon and I walked over to the closest tree.
“We’ve seen the flesh inside the trees,” I said. I cut a piece of bark from a tree, and the flesh underneath was green. “We also saw the trees help with colored energy when Reego and Wisket healed Ah’Rhea.” I walked to another tree and cut the bark to reveal yellow inside. “The four colors have power. The four elements have power.”
Thankfully Anna caught on to what I was thinking. She took the dagger from my hand and wheeled to another tree, cutting some bark off to reveal blue tree flesh.
“So with four different colored trees, you think we can tap into the mystical power of the Nullwood,” she said.
“Exactly!” I said, thankful that someone was following my logic.
“But how?” Kay asked. “We’re not mystical animals. How do you propose we talk to the trees?”
“I have an idea,” I said, “but it’s going to sound really stupid.”
“We won’t think it’s stupid,” Anna said.
“Okay,” I continued. “I think we need to be connected. Connected with the trees, with the elements. Like actually connected.” I stooped down to the ground and scooped up a fistful of mossy dirt. Then I walked over to the tree with exposed green flesh and pressed my hand upon the patch of green. “Like this.”
“Nothing is happening,” Kay noted.
“We need all four,” I said.
“Right,” Anna said, and then asked Jim for a bottle of water. “We have to do all four elements at once.”
Jim tossed her a bottle out of his backpack and then she poured a small amount of water into her cupped hand. With her other hand, she touched the open blue patch upon the tree. Following suit, Jim walked over to the tree with an exposed yellow patch and touched his palm to the patch.
“How am I supposed to get wind?” he said.
“I dunno,” I said with a shrug. “Blow on your hand?”
Jim didn’t blow on his hand but instead reached into his pack and brought out a small lighter. “I hate to kick dirt on this idea so soon, but somebody can’t light a hand on fire while touching a pink tree.”
It was a good point. I hadn’t considered fire. My plan was a dead end.
“What if it doesn’t have to be constant?” Anna asked. “Maybe just brushing the little flame against our skin will activate a connection. We’re talking about mysticism, so that could work, right?”
Anna looked at Ah’Rhea for some sort of assurance. The woman turned from the sky briefly, just long enough to nod and shrug, silently affirming that it was worth a try. So, Jim tossed the lighter to Kay and she walked around until she found a tree with exposed pink flesh. Then she placed her hand on it.
We were ready to give the plan a try. I held earth in my hand, Anna had water in hers, Jim began blowing on his hand, and Kay flicked the lighter until a little flame popped up. With her left hand on the tree and her right hand clutching the lighter, Kay brought the flame close to her arm, and as she quickly brushed it against her skin an image appeared in my mind like a flash.
The dome. The image in my mind was the dome of colored branches. Unfortunately, it left as fast as it had arrived. I looked at Kay and the flame was no longer touching her skin, but her eyes were wide, and she looked from me to Jim to Anna.
“You saw it, didn’t you?” I asked.
“The dome,” Jim said. “I saw it. It was just a flash though. Did you see it, Kay?”
“Yeah,” Kay said almost breathless.
“We all did,” Anna said, “but as soon as the flame left your skin, Kay, the image was gone.”
“Well, how long do I have to do that to figure out how to get to the dome?” Kay asked. “I’m not gonna burn my arm off.”
“Give me that,” Ah’Rhea said, and grabbed the lighter out of Kay’s hand. The woman gestured for Kay to move away from the tree, and then Ah’Rhea took Kay’s position. “Tell me when you’re ready.”
In turn, we all signaled we were ready, and then Ah’Rhea flicked the lighter.
In a flash, the vision was back. The dome, in all its multicolored glory, was present in my mind’s eye. I was above it, and the sky was rushing past me like time was moving forward at breakneck speed. However, the dome’s energy was cool, and it calmed me. I turned away from it and saw the Nullwood stretching out before me. I could see the border in the east, I could see an immense swath of murk and fog in the south, in the west the sun was setting like a god of fire diving beneath the horizon, and then to the north…
The mynahs were searching, screeching, and tearing through the air and trees. We were losing time. We needed to move or to take cover. Yes, we needed to take cover as soon as possible. Danger was almost upon us.
We broke from the vision, and it was obvious we had all seen the same thing. Ah’Rhea winced in pain from the burn she had sustained but was well enough to ignore it and bark out orders.
“We need to hide, now,” she said.
“What happened?” Kay asked. “What did you guys see?”
“Mynahs are coming,” Jim said with worry on his face.
Ah’Rhea looked at Reego and Wisket. “I don’t know what the two of you are capable of in these woods, but we need your power now. We need a secure shelter. We all need a place to remain hidden and safe for the night.”
Again, as they did when they healed Ah’Rhea, the mystical animals connected with their auras of energy, and soon the power of the trees was with them once more. The trees writhed and bent, pulling up and out of the ground as if every black branch was a twisting snake, alive and slithering. The powerful trees tied themselves together, and as we watched, they bent and molded into the shape of a twisted den. The mysticals ran for the opening in the molded husk of black trees, and we did not hesitate to follow our angels to salvation. And as we did, the skies grew black with the presence of mynahs, and their screeching thundered in my ears. I looked up to find them, and I tripped on a black root and fell.
“Arthur, get up! Hurry!” Kay yelled at me from the opening in the trees.
“Huuu-reeee, huuuu-reeee,” the voices of the swarming mynahs mimicked.
I scrambled to my feet and bolted for the opening everyone else was already safely inside. But just as I was within reach, something grabbed my arm and jolted me to a stop.
“Arthur!” Anna yelled.
I turned to see what was holding me and found my arm grasped tight in the claws of a howling mynah. Suddenly my vision flashed, and a scene unfolded in my mind’s eye. I was surveying cells in a dark dungeon. There were filthy people in them, all backing away from me as I walked down the row of dingy steel-barred cells. At once, I realized I was a mynah. I was a mynah, and I was watching the prisoners at the Starless Tower.
Then, I heard a familiar voice in the vision. It was Ah’Rhea’s voice.
“I promise I’ll help you any way I can,” she said.
I turned to the right, still looking through the mynah’s eyes, and saw Ah’Rhea sitting upon the filthy floor of a cell. Next to her was my mother.
Light flashed and I was back in the Nullwood again with the mynah holding me tight. I screamed, and suddenly a shovel swung over my right shoulder. It smacked the mynah across its beak, and it let go of me. I fell to the ground, and looked up to see Jim.
“Get inside the shelter!” Jim yelled at me as he stepped between me and the mynah. His shovel was held high, and he swung it at the mynah again, just barely missing contact.
I scrambled across the floor of the Nullwood until I was inside the shelter, and turned while still on the ground to see Jim slowly backing toward the opening, swinging his shovel wildly to keep the monsters at bay. There were so many mynahs now, maybe twenty or thirty, and the screeching was so loud.
It all happened fast, but it seemed like ages until finally Jim backed into the opening. I glimpsed the sky, thick with a swarm of mynahs that could have blocked out the sun. As he stepped inside the hideaway the Nullwood had gifted us, the small opening shut tight and we were encompassed by thick wood and darkness. The mysticals and the forest had saved us from the mynahs. Jim had saved my life. This would be where we would spend the night.
Ah’Rhea flicked the small lighter again and the flame let us see her face.
“Did you all see what I saw in the vision?” she asked. “Did you see the location of the dome?”
“Northwest,” Jim said. “The dome is to the northwest.”
Anna and I both agreed.
“Good,” Ah’Rhea said. “Now get some rest. We are safe here. We’ll travel northwest to the dome of colored branches in the morning.”
The flame went out, and again we were left in darkness.
In the morning, we worked at the twisted trees around us until we had made a gap large enough to see outside. It was gray, but light, and there was no sign of mynahs. We had come through the night unscathed. Once again, the mysticals had saved us, and now Jim had saved me on the same day I’d given him a black eye.
